


Tales of the Seven Lands

by TheDameintheRaininMaine



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anthology, Fantasy, Gen, fantasy humor, series of loosely inter-connected works
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 11:19:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18799309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDameintheRaininMaine/pseuds/TheDameintheRaininMaine
Summary: Ceskana is a large nation. Icy mountains to the north, oceans on three sides. It has all the usual features, swamps, valley, forests. The academie de magica sits above it's capital, where each generations chosen learn to wave wands and raise boils. There's a unicorn or two, dragons during the certain age, and the usual political maneuvers that come with a monarchy and feudal system.It aint exactly Westeros.





	Tales of the Seven Lands

The fair was beautiful, even from as far away as the hill. 

The academie de magica loomed in the background, as solid and imposing as it always was with it’s solid stone walls, decorated for today by colorful flags that swayed in the wind and changed hues with the sun. 

The fair spread out in front of it, stalls and stands being set up, stages and shows in preparation. Today, the students of the academie would show off their skills to the people of the valley, and display their latest creations. Potion masters would cure boils, diviners would tell fortunes, magi-historians would put on a play of the birth of Gladys the great. Last year a young conjurer had even summoned and rode a unicorn into the forest. 

Katja was so entranced by the picture in front of her, that she tripped under the weight of the cart. 

“Head out of the clouds girl,” Granny cackles, following up behind her with her cane. 

Katja lifts the cart handle back up and continues. Days like this she almost wished she hadn’t taken the apprenticeship with the old woman. Half the girls her age in the village had married right out of school and were already having children. Even some who had gone into trades like she had already wed- Clare from the bakery had married the milkman last spring, and Emilie at the stables was engaged to one of the other grooms. 

But traveling with Granny, Katja had seen more of the kingdom than she had ever thought she could. And if she hadn’t, she would have never gotten to see the fair. It was a special day indeed, Katja had even worn her best dress, the one with the gold braid and the round skirt.

They have a good spot on the grounds, just below the main stage. To their left, a family of shepherd’s shill the wool of their lambs, run, spun and knit. Students were always a great market for a soft jumper or a woolen hat. The stall to the right, serves up boxes of hot spiced nuts, a hit for everyone, wizard or normal.

“Do you really believe we’ll be able to turn a profit from this stock?” Katja asks as she begins unloading boxes, unwrapping packages and setting the display. 

Granny sticks her cane to the ground and uses her hand to gesture wide and far at the people who have started to wander the stalls. 

“This whole fair will be full of young people. Students, away from home for the first time. Students who are being taught the great art of magic...and who have no time for anything but. I’ve never made it out of this fair with a single ware leftover.”

Katja is skeptical, but trades a coin for a box of nuts, and sets back answering questions for customers who approach. 

“Does this really work better than Scouring Potions?” a senior girl with the look of a nobleman’s most proper daughter asks, handling a pink bar shaped into a flower. She wears the uniform immaculately, black robes pressed, pointy hat perfectly straight, none of the casual 

“Does it?” Granny says, “Why this is the finest of hand-made soap. This won’t give you pox or run your colors, or dissolve your Sticking Potions at all! Just rub, then rinse with water and you’ll be clean as a whistle!”

She sends the high-nosed girl on her way with a, 

“And remind your teachers we have mop soap too, with absolutely no risk of rendering your stone floors sharp enough to cut feet!”

Katja would have to ask her the story behind that one someday. 

She has bags of laundry soap as well. Those she pushes on the younger students who look a bit worse for wear without their mothers around. 

The presence particularly avoidant eyed, spotty student makes Granny bring out the box of her special selection. Katja had blushed red as a beet upon seeing the papers of nude drawings and magazines of bawdy romance tales the first time, but they always flew off the shelf. 

Granny was an unassuming looking woman, with long hair long gone gray, plaited and wrapped around her head. She wore a simple wool dress over her linen blouse. But she was a showwoman, a veteran of the stage, and she always had a way to find an audience. Katja was pretty, had been told so most of her life, and never lacked for a dance when they were in a place to join somewhere festivities, but she never would draw people to her like Granny did.

When the noon-day sun is high in the air, Katja asks for some time to walk around and see the other stalls. 

“Fine, but I’m taking your cut while you’re gone.”

The stage in the center is set with instruments. Though strumming, and blowing and piping, they have no players, they merely drift as if on marionette strings, and play themselves. The melody can be heard from end to end of the fair, even over the valley. 

A younger student Katja passes is walking a miniature dragon on a leash. The metal muzzle ring pinching the sulfur glands shut shines like it’s been freshly oiled. A small group of boys and girls surround a cauldron, singing and chanting as the contents bubble and foam and produce smoke the color of spun sugar. 

She even passes a youth with metal swords where his arms should have been. This does not appear to please him. His companion, who looks too old to be a student, likely an alumni returning simply for the festivities, is giggling at his expense. 

“This is what I get for letting you test your new charms on me, give me my arms back right now!”

She thinks back to the day the call from the school went out. The children with the gift simply followed it, as if they had known to do so the whole of their lives, walking towards the school to begin their education. Katja had often wondered throughout the years what it would have been like if she had been among them. 

When she returns to the stall, Granny is espouses the qualities of their wares to a tall boy with a look like he could have been the high-nosed girl’s brother. 

“Made of the finest ingredients, from the finest parts of the country!”

When he finally leaves, Katja says, 

“Oh Granny, our soaps made of the same fat and lye as anyones!”

Granny fixes her with a sharp glance. 

“And do you think he has any idea? This bunch has spent so long their heads in books and waving their wands they wouldn’t know a field mouse from a rock. Besides,” 

She gestures at the leaving boy’s feet, clad in fine leather boots. 

“See his shoes? I doubt he knew what soap was made of even before he ever touched an eye of newt! Even before he was learning to turn footstools into cats, he was probably just learning how to tell someone to wash something for him, not doing any washing.”

Katja’s attempts to object is interrupted with a tall figure in a hat runs and ducks behind the pair. 

“Don’t tell them I’m here!,” he hisses, removing his hat. 

Katja spares an eye. He’s a rather young-looking man, maybe her age, with dark curly hair. He also looks flat terrified.

Soon, a group of older men and women, approach, followed the path between the stalls, with their wands drawn. They were their masters colors, purple for wizard, green for hedgewitch, blue for enchanter, and others Katja doesn’t remember. One is even in silver, one of the High Witches running the school. 

“He couldn’t have gotten far!”

When they’ve gone far enough that they can no longer be heard, the young man stands again. He keep his hat off, nervously patting down his hair. 

“You might want to take off the cloak too, “ Granny advises, gesturing at his cloak, solid black and lined with red. 

“Good idea,” he agrees, “I’m Jacob by the way.” His hands are shaking as he unclasps and folds it. Katja takes it from him and finally asks, 

“Should we know what you did to upset the Academie council?”

He laughs nervously, “Well...it’s a bit of a story. I took the stage on the far end- no one was there! And I took the opportunity to put on my usual show. Just the normal stuff! Rabbits from my hat, concealing cards. Once I got a few people watching, it was going great!”

Without his cloak, he’s dressed very ordinarily, in wool trousers with braces and a linen shirt. He fiddles with his cuffs and adjusts his collar. 

“I was doing my best trick, making my assistant- my sister Ryn- disappear. There were a few teachers in the crowd...and when I did it, they stated yelling. Talking about ‘did I think this was child’s play’ and ‘did I not know the dangers of the Nothingness’, then started throwing things and chasing me off the stage.”

“I should think so,” Katja says, “Vanishing someone is serious magic, I can’t believe you would do that to your own sister.”

“Well that’s the thing…” he adds slowly. He gets up, and gestures at Katja to follow him. He leads her to the stage where he had come from. The wood is rough hewn, clearly one of the older sets. There’s a hand painted sign pinned to the front, advertising “The Great Jacob”. 

Jacob walks around to the side, and casually leans against it. He raps his knuckles three times against the wood. 

A board pops loose, and a girl of about five crawls out. She has her brother’s dark curls. 

“Did it not work?”

Jacob laughs and ruffles her hair. 

“No Ryn, no one got see the end.”

Ryn frowns. “So we made the trap door for nothing?”

Jacob picks her up and puts her on his shoulders. As they walk back to the stall, he tells Katja their tale. 

“It’s what we do. We’re from a little mountain town up north. Mining mostly. Not much in the way of magic, I think as long as I can remember, we’ve had maybe ten kids in the whole place follow the call.”

He hoists Ryn up onto the table. She starts waving at the passersby. 

“My mother was born in a theater troupe. She used to tell us all stories about it, about how great it felt to enchant an audience, to bring them into your world. So I used to try that. I didn’t hear the call, had no magical talent of course. So I learned to fake it.”

He puts his hands out and Ryn does the same. They clap back and forth three times, then he twists his hand past her ear and seemingly pulls a bouquet of flowers from behind it. 

It is kind of impressive to be sure. 

“It’s all showmanship. Getting people to look where you want them to, so they don’t see what you’re actually doing. The trap door works great. I used to put on little shows in the town center during markets. I would have been happy doing that, to be honest.”

He passes the bouquet to Katja, who smiles unexpectedly. 

“But then the mine blew, and Pa died. Ma went not long after, Ryn was still just a babe. So I took her, and we left. We put on shows sometimes for coin, do odd jobs. Ended up here practically by accident.”

He looks around again, clearly wondering if the council were still near. 

“Though perhaps we should steer clear of actual wizards.”

“You could tag along with us,” Katja blurts out. She’s surprised herself, and glances quickly to see Granny’s response. To her relief, she’s immediately taken. 

“An actress’s child eh, “ Granny says, tugging on one of Jacob’s ears to get a better look at him. “Now that I could work with. You wouldn’t get a cut until you’re trained though, I don’t carry dead weight.”

The sun has begun to turn down at this point, there’s still a lot of the day to go. 

“The inn over the meadow is where most of the traveling peddlers stay the night, “ Katja tells them. “And there’s always dancing and drink”. 

“Now stop that,” Granny slaps her wrist. “It’s still time to be moving merchandise here. Now, boy,” she gestures to Jacob, “Do you know anything about soap?”

“My ma used to mix honey in when she made soap for our hair,” he says slowly. 

“Well Katja, we’ve got a fancy one here, didn’t know the mountain folk were that kind.”

She grab a small box of the plain white bars and thrusts them to him.

“Well fancy boy, walk the lines and offer out some samples.”

Jacob meets her eye over Granny’s head. Katja smiles apologetically, and nods.


End file.
